This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

London 2012: Why hurdler and famously declared virgin Lolo Jones is a winner by being a loser

Even after Lolo Jones lost here, journalists apparently ignored winning athletes in order to get a comment from her. Know why that happens? Because she&rsquo;s the story.

At 5 a.m. Wednesday, on her preferred communication medium, U.S. hurdler Lolo Jones, who failed to medal, tweeted that she &ldquo;almost went @britneyspears on ya&rdquo; and shaved her head. What stopped her?
According to her, the sympathy she received from her half-million followers. Less than seven hours after it had turned on her, Jones had already turned the story back. (OLIVIER MORIN / AFP)

She may be the most able user of Twitter in the athletic world. She’s got a good backstory. She is also a great beauty.

That’s got to be why people hate her for having a plan.

Article Continued Below

She crashed out of the 100m hurdles in Beijing after hitting the ninth of ten barriers. That incident gave Jones a status no casual fan can resist: the wronged shoo-in, the unlucky, obvious choice.

She worked hard at promoting herself – something female athletes must do to earn money, and then must be lashed for, because the mob is fickle.

It was not Jones’s fault that people wanted to talk to her and listen to her and photograph her. But she got so high up on that pre-Olympic pedestal that even The New York Times took a mean-spirited run at her.

Jones is that thing all journalists love: a good talker. There’s a reason that media coaches try to beat that out of their clients – most good talkers eventually get pulped and flattened.

If you are famous (and you don’t need to be terribly famous), everything you say now is something that will be used against you later. Over the course of four years, Jones filled up a docket’s worth of material.

She was able to maintain her perch for just as long as she was still in the medal hunt. On Tuesday night, she finished fourth.

And then the knives came out.

“And now a few words about the Americans who actually medalled,” ESPN sniffed.

“Lolo Jones Finishes Fourth in the Olympics. So Did She Deserve to Be Heard?” Time magazine wondered. (In fairness to them, the answer to their own question was “Sure.”)

Even after that loss, journalists in the press area apparently ignored winning athletes in order to get a comment from Jones. That bothered some people.

But do you know why that happens? Because she’s the story.

She’s the reason you’re reading this now. You would not have clicked into an article with the headline, “Hurdling gold medallist Sally Pearson thanks her coach, loves her mom.”

You don’t know who Sally Pearson is and I’m guessing you don’t care. Lolo Jones you may feel some small connection to. That’s part of her genius.

Afterward, we wanted our payoff – the schadenfreude, the regret.

And we got it, though probably not enough that they won’t be chasing Jones around for weeks trying to get her to flip out or – and this is never going to happen because it’s not true – admit she was wrong to talk to people and let them take pictures of her.

“I guess all the people who were talking about me, they can have their night and laugh about me,” Jones said, which is a pretty effective way of preventing people from laughing at you.

At 5 a.m. Wednesday, on her preferred communication medium, Jones tweeted that she “almost went @britneyspears on ya” and shaved her head.

What stopped her?

According to her, the sympathy she received from her half-million followers. Less than seven hours after it had turned on her, Jones had already turned the story back. Now she’s the aggrieved party, the one that was thrown off her game by the media haters. What she needs now is the warm embrace of the common folk.

Lolo Jones may be the cleverest athlete at the Olympics. She wants to take a third run at it in Rio. That marketing campaign has already started.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com